Prate_ave in atmospheric sfc history files accumulates while cycling - TerrenceMcGuinness-NOAA/global-workflow GitHub Wiki

You're right - this is primarily a technical issue rather than a physical model problem.

Based on the GitHub issue and your configuration, this is specifically related to how accumulated fields are handled between forecast cycles. The precipitation rate average (prate_ave) is not being reset at the beginning of each cycle in GFSv17, causing it to accumulate continuously.

Technical Root Cause

1. Field Reset Issue: In the workflow or model configuration, accumulated fields like prate_ave should be reset to zero at the start of each forecast cycle, but this isn't happening.

2. Cycling Configuration: Your experiment is in cycled mode (mode: cycled), which means fields from previous forecasts are being carried forward, including accumulated precipitation that should be reset.

3. Branch-Specific Bug: The c1152_cycgit branch you're using has this known issue with handling accumulated fields.

Potential Fix Locations

This is likely an issue in one of these components:

1. The model's restart file handling in the UFS model code
2. The post-processing scripts that prepare model output
3. Configuration settings in the workflow that control field resets

Since this is happening consistently on this specific branch, a code fix would be needed rather than a configuration change. The fix would need to properly reset accumulation fields at the beginning of each forecast cycle.

This is not a model physics or spin-up problem, but rather a technical implementation issue with how accumulated fields are managed between forecast cycles.